Mr. Shata performs marriage ceremonies weekly, encountering a diversity
in America that he never imagined in Egypt. Here, he unites an
Ecuadorean woman and a Syrian man, though he would not convert her
until she learned more about Islam.

For Mr. Shata, blessing an Islamic wedding like this one is a joyful
occasion. But when it is a less traditional celebration, with women
wearing revealing outfits and mingling with men, it can be challenging,
too.

Mr. Shata hugs his daughter Rahma, 6, while his wife, Omyma, carries
their baby, Mohammed. Behind him, his daughter Rawda, 7, rests after
one of the many epileptic seizures she has each day. She is homebound,
and her illness has brought hardship to the family.

Women gather for a Friday sermon at the mosque. They will watch the
imam on a closed-circuit television, one floor below the men. Despite
the separation, Mr. Shata has developed a strong bond with women and
often counsels them.

Dressed in a crisp polo shirt
and swathed in cologne, he races his Nissan Maxima through the
rain-slicked streets of Manhattan, late for a date with a tall
brunette. At red lights, he fusses with his hair.

What sets the
bachelor apart from other young men on the make is the chaperon sitting
next to him — a tall, bearded man in a white robe and stiff embroidered
hat.

"I pray that Allah will bring this couple together," the
man, Sheik Reda Shata, says, clutching his seat belt and urging the
bachelor to slow down.

Christian singles have coffee hour.
Young Jews have JDate. But many Muslims believe that it is forbidden
for an unmarried man and woman to meet in private. In predominantly
Muslim countries, the job of making introductions and even arranging
marriages typically falls to a vast network of family and friends.

In Brooklyn, there is Mr. Shata.

Week
after week, Muslims embark on dates with him in tow. Mr. Shata, the
imam of a Bay Ridge mosque, juggles some 550 "marriage candidates,"
from a gold-toothed electrician to a professor at Columbia University.
The meetings often unfold on the green velour couch of his office, or
over a meal at his favorite Yemeni restaurant on Atlantic Avenue.

The
bookish Egyptian came to America in 2002 to lead prayers, not to dabble
in matchmaking. He was far more conversant in Islamic jurisprudence
than in matters of the heart. But American imams must wear many hats,
none of which come tailor-made.

If
anything seems conquerable, it is the solitude of Muslim singles.
Nothing brings the imam more joy than guiding them to marriage. It is
his way of fashioning a future for his faith. It is his most heartfelt
effort — by turns graceful and comedic, vexing and hopeful — to make
Islam work in America.

Word of the imam's talents has traveled
far, eliciting lonely calls from Muslims in Chicago and Los Angeles, or
from meddlesome parents in Cairo and Damascus.

From an estimated 250 chaperoned dates, Mr. Shata has produced 10 marriages.

"The
prophet said whoever brings a man and woman together, it is as if he
has worshiped for an entire year," said Mr. Shata, 37, speaking through
an Arabic translator.

The task is not easy. In a country of plentiful options, Muslim immigrants can become picky, even rude, the imam complains.

During one date, a woman studied the red-circled eyes of a prospective husband and asked, "Have you brought me an alcoholic?"

On
another occasion, an Egyptian man stared at the flat chest of a
pleasant young Moroccan woman and announced, "She looks like a log!"
the imam recalled.

"This would never happen in Egypt," said Mr.
Shata, turning red at the memory. "Never, never. If I knew this boy had
no manners I never would have let him into my office."

The Imam's Little Black Book

The concept of proper courtship in Islam, like much about the faith, is open to interpretation.

Islamic
law specifies that a man and woman who are unmarried may not be alone
in closed quarters. Some Muslims reject any mingling before marriage.
Others freely date. Many fall somewhere in between, meeting in groups,
getting engaged and spending time alone before the wedding, while their
parents look the other way.

For one Syrian in New York, a date at Starbucks is acceptable if it begins and ends on the premises: The public is his chaperon.

Mr.
Shata is a traditionalist. There were few strangers in his rural town
of birth, Kafr al Battikh, in northeastern Egypt. Men and women often
agreed to marry the day they met, and a few made the deal sight unseen.
It was rare to meet anyone from a distant province, let alone another
country.

New York is not only the capital of the world, imams
often joke, but also the crossroads of Islam, a human sampling more
diverse than anywhere save Mecca during the annual pilgrimage known as
the Hajj. Beyond the city's five boroughs, Muslim immigrants have
formed Islamic hubs in California, Illinois, Michigan and Texas.

At
the center of these hubs stands a familiar sight in a foreign land, the
mosque. What was a place of worship in Pakistan or Algeria becomes, in
Houston or Detroit, a social haven. But inside, the sexes remain
largely apart.

A growing number of Muslim Web sites advertise
marriage candidates, and housewives often double as matchmakers. One
mosque in Princeton, N.J., plays host to a closely supervised version
of speed dating. And so many singles worship at the Islamic Society of
Boston that a committee was formed to match them up.

Fearing a
potential surplus of single Muslim women, one Brooklyn imam reportedly
urged his wealthier male congregants during a Ramadan sermon last year
to take two wives. When a woman complained about the sermon to Mr.
Shata, he laughed.

"You know that preacher who said Hugo Chávez should be shot?" he asked. "We have our idiots, too."

More
than a matchmaker, Mr. Shata sees himself as a surrogate elder to young
Muslims, many of whom live far from their parents. In America, only an
imam is thought to have the connections, wisdom and respect to step
into the role.

Mr. Shata began the service three months after
arriving in Brooklyn in 2002, recruited to lead the Islamic Society of
Bay Ridge, a mosque on Fifth Avenue.

Dates chaperoned by Mr.
Shata — or "meetings between candidates," as the imam prefers to call
them — often take place in his distinctly unromantic office, amid rows
of Islamic texts. As a couple get acquainted, the imam sits quietly at
his desk, writing a sermon or surfing the Arabic Web sites of CNN and
the BBC.

If there is an awkward silence, the imam perks up and
asks a question ("So tell me, Ilham, how many siblings do you have?")
and the conversation is moving again.

Candidates are vetted
carefully, and those without personal references need not apply. But
instinct is Mr. Shata's best guide. He refused to help a Saudi from
California because the man would consider only a teenage wife. Others
have shown an all-too-keen interest in a green card.

Those who
pass initial inspection are listed in the imam's version of a little
black book — their names, phone numbers, specifications and desires.
Some prefer "silky hair," others "a virgin." Nearly all candidates, men
and women alike, want a mate with devotion to Islam, decent looks and
legal immigration status.

Scanning the book, the imam makes his pitch with the precision of a car salesman.

"This is my only choice?" replied the man, Yamal Othman, who lives in Queens.

Such
questions annoy Mr. Shata. An imam, he says, should be trusted to
select the best candidate. Often, though, his recommendations are met
with skepticism.

"It's harder than choosing a diamond," said Mr. Shata.

Sometimes,
on the imam's three-legged dates, no one seems more excited than Mr.
Shata himself. He makes hurried, hearty introductions and then steps
back to watch, as if mixing chemicals in a lab experiment. Love is
rarely ignited, but the imam remains awed by its promise.

Mr. Shata discovered love 15 years ago, when he walked into the living room of the most stately house in Kafr al Battikh.

The
imam was tall, 22, a rising star at the local mosque. For months, Omyma
Elshabrawy knew only his voice. She would listen to his thunderous
sermons from the women's section, out of view. Then, one evening, he
appeared at her home, presented as a prospective groom to her father, a
distinguished reciter of the Koran.

The young woman, then 20, walked toward Mr. Shata carrying a tray of lemonade.

"She entered my heart," said the imam.

After
serving the drinks, she disappeared. Right then, Mr. Shata asked her
father for her hand in marriage. The older man paused. His daughter was
the town beauty, an English student with marriage offers from doctors.
The imam was penniless.

But before Mr. Elshabrawy could respond, a sugary voice interrupted. "I accept," his daughter said from behind a door.

"I loved him from the moment I saw him," Ms. Elshabrawy said.

They now have four children.

The
family posed last year for a Sears-style portrait, taken by a woman in
Bay Ridge who photographs Muslim families in her basement. A blue sky
and white picket fence adorn the background. The imam sits at center,
with the baby, Mohammed, in his lap, his three daughters smiling, his
wife wrapped in a lime-green hijab.

Mr. Shata carries the
picture in the breast pocket of his robe. It is as close as most people
get to his family. At the mosque, they are a mystery. His wife has been
there twice.

Their years in America have come with great
hardship, a subject the imam rarely discusses. The trouble is the
illness of his 7-year-old daughter, Rawda, who is severely epileptic.
She has dozens of seizures every day and rarely leaves home. No
combination of medicine seems to help.

"Rawda is the wound in my heart," the imam said.

Mr.
Shata offers long, stubborn theories about the value of marriage, but
to observe him at home is to understand the commitment he seeks to
foster in other Muslims.

The family lives in a spare, dimly
lighted apartment two blocks from the mosque. Headscarves are piled
over Pokémon cards. The gold-painted words "Allah is Great" are framed
over a threadbare couch. In the next room, an "I {sheart} New York"
bumper sticker is slapped on the wall.

Mr. Shata spends long
hours away from his family, lecturing at mosques, settling disputes,
whispering the call to prayer in the ears of newborn babies. On his
walk home at night, he shops for groceries, never forgetting the Honey
Nut Cheerios, a favorite American discovery of his children.

When
he walks in the door, his face softens. Loud kisses are planted on
tender cheeks. Mohammed squeals, the girls smile, sweet laughter
echoes.

But then there is Rawda.

"My beautiful girl,"
the imam says softly one evening, holding his limp daughter in his lap
after a seizure has passed. He places one pill in Rawda's mouth, then
another. She looks at him weakly.

"There we go," he whispers. "Inshallah."

Her lids close with sleep. He lays her in bed and shuts off the light.

Hardship, the imam believes — like marriage, like life — is a test from God.

Foreign and Familiar

It is proof of the imam's uncommon popularity among women that he is trusted with roughly 300 female marriage candidates.

The
mosque on Fifth Avenue is a decidedly male place. Men occupy every
position on the board of directors. They crowd the sidewalk after
prayer. Only they may enter the mosque's central room of worship. Only
men, they often point out, are required to attend the Friday prayer.

One
floor below is the cramped room where the women worship. On Fridays,
they sit pressed together, their headscarves itching with heat. They
must watch their imam on a closed-circuit television that no one seems
to have adjusted in years.

But they listen devotedly. Teenage
girls often roll their eyes at foreign imams, who seem to them like
extraterrestrials. Their immigrant mothers often find these clerics too
strict, an uncomfortable reminder of their conservative homelands.

Mr.
Shata is both foreign and familiar. He presides over a patriarchal
world, sometimes upholding it, and other times challenging it. In one
sermon, he said that a man was in charge of his home and had the right
to "choose his wife's friends."

Another day, to the consternation
of his male congregants, he invited a female Arab social worker to
lecture on domestic violence. The women were allowed to sit next to the
men in the main section of the mosque.

The imam frowns at
career women who remain single in their 30's, but boasts of their
accomplishments to interest marriage candidates. He employs his own
brand of feminism, vetting marriage contracts closely to ensure brides
receive a fair dowry and fighting for them when they don't.

Far
more than is customary, he spends hours listening to women: to their
worries and confessions, their intimate secrets and frank questions
about everything from menstruation to infidelity. They line up outside
his office and call his home at all hours, often referring to him as
"my brother" or "father." He can summon the details of their lives with
the same encyclopedic discipline he once used to memorize the Koran.

"Are
you separated yet?" Mr. Shata asked a woman he encountered at Lutheran
Medical Center one day last July. She nodded. "May God make it easier
for you," he said.

A Chaperoned Date

By
most standards, the Egyptian bachelor was a catch. He had broad
shoulders and a playful smile. He was witty. He earned a comfortable
salary as an engineer, and came from what he called "a good family."

But the imam saw him differently, as a young man in danger of losing his faith. The right match might save him.

The
bachelor, who is 33, came to Brooklyn from Alexandria, Egypt, six years
earlier. He craved a better salary, and freedom from controlling
parents. He asked that his name not be printed for fear of causing
embarrassment to his family.

America was not like Egypt, where
his family's connections could secure a good job. In Brooklyn, he found
work as a busboy. He traded the plush comfort of his parents' home for
an apartment crowded with other Egyptian immigrants. His nights were
lonely. Temptation was abundant.

Women covered far less of
their bodies. Bare limbs, it seemed, were everywhere. In Islam, men are
instructed to lower their gaze to avoid falling into sin.

"In the summertime, it's a disaster for us," said the bachelor. "Especially a guy like me, who's looking all the time."

Curiosity lured him into bars, clubs and the occasional one-night stand.

But with freedom came guilt, he said. After drifting from his faith, he visited Mr. Shata's mosque during Ramadan in 2004.

The
imam struck him as oddly disarming. He made jokes, and explained Islam
in simple, passionate paragraphs. The bachelor soon began praying
daily, attending weekly lectures and reading the Koran. By then, he had
his own apartment and a consulting job.

Now he wanted a Muslim wife.

If
the bachelor had been in Egypt, his parents would offer a stream of
marriage candidates. The distance had not stopped them entirely. His
mother sent him a video of his brother's wedding, directing him to
footage of a female guest. He was unimpressed.

"I'm a handsome
guy," he explained one evening as he sped toward Manhattan. It was his
second date with Mr. Shata in attendance. "I have a standard in
beauty."

From the passenger seat, the imam flipped open the
glove compartment to find an assortment of pricey colognes. He
inspected a bottle of Gio and, with a nod from the bachelor, spritzed
it over his robe.

The imam and the bachelor were at odds over the
material world, but on one thing they agreed: it is a Muslim duty to
smell good. The religion's founder, the Prophet Muhammad, was said to
wear musk.

The car slowed before a brick high-rise on Second
Avenue. Soon the pair rode up in the elevator. The bachelor took a
breath and rang the doorbell. An older woman answered. Behind her stood
a slender, fetching woman with a shy smile.

The young woman,
Engy Abdelkader, had been presented to the imam by another matchmaker.
A woman of striking beauty and poise, Ms. Abdelkader is less timid than
she first seems. She works as an immigration and human rights lawyer,
and speaks in forceful, eloquent bursts. She is proud of her faith, and
lectures publicly on Islam and civil liberties.

She was not
always so outspoken. The daughter of Egyptian immigrants, Ms.
Abdelkader, 30, was raised in suburban Howell, N.J., where she longed
to fit in. Though she grew up praying, in high school she chose not to
wear a hijab, the head scarf donned by Muslim girls when they reach
puberty.

But Sept. 11 awakened her, Ms. Abdelkader said. For her
and other Muslims, the terrorist attacks prompted a return to the
faith, driven by what she said was a need to reclaim Islam from
terrorists and a vilifying media. Headscarves became a statement, equal
parts political and religious.

"There's nothing oppressive about
it," said Ms. Abdelkader. "As a Muslim woman I am asking people to pay
attention to the content of my character rather than my physical
appearance."

The pair sat on a couch, awkwardly sipping tea. They
began by talking, in English, about their professions. The bachelor was
put off by the fact that Ms. Abdelkader had a law degree, yet earned a
modest salary.

"Why go to law school and not make money?" he asked later.

Ms.
Abdelkader's mother and a female friend who lived in the apartment sat
listening nearby until the imam mercifully distracted them. The first
hint of trouble came soon after.

It was his dream, the engineer
told Ms. Abdelkader, to buy a half-million-dollar house. But he was
uncertain that the mortgage he would need is lawful in Islam.

Ms.
Abdelkader straightened her back and replied, "I would rather have
eternal bliss in the hereafter than live in a house or apartment with a
mortgage."

An argument ensued. Voices rose. Ms. Abdelkader's
mother took her daughter's side. The friend wavered. The bachelor held
his ground. The imam tried to mediate.

Indeed, he was puzzled.
Here was a woman who had grown up amid tended lawns and new cars, yet
she rejected materialism. And here was a man raised by Muslim hands,
yet he was rebelliously moderate.

After the date, the bachelor told the imam, "I want a woman, not a sheik."

Months
later, he married another immigrant; she was not especially devoted to
Islam but she made him laugh, he said. They met through friends in New
York.

Ms. Abdelkader remains single. The imam still believes she was the perfect match.

That evening, the imam stood on the sidewalk outside. Rain fell in stinging drops.

"I
never wanted to be a sheik," he said. "I used to think that a religious
person is very extreme and never smiles. And I love to smile. I love to
laugh. I used to think that religious people were isolated and I love
to be among people."

The rain soaked the imam's robe and began to pool in his sandals. A moment later, he ducked inside the building.

"The
surprise for me was that the qualities I thought would not make a good
sheik — simplicity and humor and being close to people — those are the
most important qualities. People love those who smile and laugh. They
need someone who lives among them and knows their pain."